


SNAP!

by Hyghenia



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: ;), Asexual Cholé Bourgeois, F/M, Gen, Identity Reveal, Long-Fic Attempt, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, for now, maybe Demi-Chloé
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24453271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyghenia/pseuds/Hyghenia
Summary: Marinette is done trying to help her classmates. They haven't been her friends for awhile.One lie too many, and Marinette finally feels herself break from the pressure of holding back and staying nice to her classmates; add onto that being Ladybug and having way too many problems to deal with--Marinette tries to find the line of justice vs vengeance."Marinette felt something inside her snap. Maybe instead of cushioning their fall, she’d be the one pushing them off."And the writer figured out how to edit summaries. ツ
Relationships: Chloé Bourgeois & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne
Comments: 108
Kudos: 711





	1. S N A P

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at a longer fic, wish me luck and feed me comments <3
> 
> Eventually Damian Wayne and the BatFam will be here. But gotta get all setup first ayee.

# S N A P

Years had led up to this point. It had been a long time coming. Frankly it should have happened shortly after it started.

It had been years of lies and betrayals. The people she had thought were her closest friends had turned on her. Lila had been right from the start. Her classmates would turn on her. All because of lies.

Lies they shouldn’t have believed; they could be easily proven wrong. Could have easily just been thought about—a napkin, take an eye out?

Instead her classmates, at the time friends, had believed what a new student had told them. They wouldn’t have even bothered to look up through a clear window to see whether it was raining if Lila said that was why she had been an hour late.

A few times Marinette had believed that they’d believe her. Few times when it seemed that Lila’s lies had finally spun themselves around their spider queen. Times that the stories were so obviously fake that not even Ladybug herself could convince a child they were true.

And yet.

Still Marinette watched as her class raveled themselves into the latest of their queen’s web. She watched thread after thread of silk entangle them, bind their hands, wrap around their throats and bind them in place. Marinette knew the dangers of false promises. A promise to introduce to an idol was a happy dream, but a promise to get a special invite for a contest or an uncle that could but a fast-track to a life-goal. While a happy step today, would just be leading to a bigger fall, and with how high Lila had stacked her tales, her classmates wouldn’t survive the fall. And despite herself Marinette didn’t want that to happen.

“Of course I introduced MDC to Papa Jagged! I couldn’t let my protégé miss out on such talent.”

Marinette felt something inside her snap. Maybe instead of cushioning their fall, she’d be the one pushing them off.

# C H A P T E R 1

Marinette wanted to scream. She wanted to throw all of Lila’s lies into her face right then. But she held back. After years of seeing the spider queen weave her web she knew tugging a few strands only wound the struggling flies in tighter.

‘Jagged Stone calls his adoptee’s Nieces and Nephews! So they call him **Uncle** Jagged!’

‘MDC, me, met Jagged Stone because of our service project at the hotel—all of you were there and saw me work with him!’

Nieces and Nephews? Well I am his favorite after all, I just didn’t realize everyone else was just a nephew. Silly Marinette, you shouldn’t claim to be MDC, I did meet him and his style is so different to your pathetic drawings. And just because you worked with him so long ago doesn’t mean you would be his solo-designer now.

Marinette scowled to herself, when had she gotten so good at impersonating Lila; even just in her head?

Before her classmates could spot any emotions on her face she relaxed into her blank stare. After the first months of being on her own she had learned to channel her emotional control into a mask. Hawkmoth would not be able to use her emotions, and neither would her classmates. Marinette was able to keep her mask on long enough to get by her classmate’s swarm passing them quickly.

Chloé joined her from her classroom door with a murmur, “they move faster than they think, at least.”

Marinette’s face scrunched as she snorted. Chloé returned her smirk with a side eye as they continued towards the school entrance.

“Lunch at your place, as usual?”

“Of course, a bakery is much less busy than the _world famous_ Parisian hotel restaurant!” Marinette responded somewhat sarcastically. While the Bourgeois’ hotel was world famous, and the restaurant inside of it, they preferred the cozy corner bakery for their lunch breaks.

“Good, there are far too many visitors at the hotel nowadays.”

“Oh? No one cute enough show you interest then, Chol-Bee?”

Chloé scoffs at Marinette’s comment before adding, “we both know I wouldn’t be interested.”

At that both girls smiled to themselves. Chloé had only recently let Marinette know her biggest secret. And sharing had only brought them closer together.

Once Lila had finally made good on her threat to turn the class against Marinette, the bakers’ daughter had spent a few weeks alone in the back of the class. Quieted into submission Lila had begun turning the class on Chloé, who had also seen through Lila’s tall tales. As the long-time class tormentor she had not lasted nearly as long as Marinette, and had been moved to the back desk next to Marinette.

Their friendship had begun slowly, a borrowed pencil or sheet of paper, but both girls were alone and wishing for company. The first times visiting one another was awkward, having to repeatedly explain no it’s not a school project, yes, the two really did want to spend time together, yes Mama I am not being forced to say that! After Marinette’s parents had gotten used to seeing Chloé around the bakery their friendship had flourished quickly.

Until just a few weeks before Chloé had begun to pull away. After just a week of a quiet, shy Chloé avoiding the bakery Marinette cornered her after school. The small French-Asian girl may have inherited her mother’s small frame, but she had also gotten her strong glare.

“What’s going on? Are you tired of me? Or do I smell? I smell don’t I—I knew I should have kept that shampoo brand. But they changed the smell of it! And I just could— “

“No!” Chloé looked down, closed her eyes and sighed, she looked back up at Marinette, who had thankfully stopped her flow-of-consciousness word-vomit. “I… did some introspection and” Marinette searched her face. Chloé suddenly felt two small hands squishing her cheeks forward.

“Chlo, whatever it is, I know you’re a good person. Sure you’ve been mean and done some bad things. But you’ve grown up. You’re a good person, and you’re my friend.” Marinette slowly blinked and paused, removed her hands off of Chloé’s face. “I’ll stop now before I ramble, but I need you Chlo.”

Marinette turned around and walked away before slowing down and turning back. She smiled a small, sad smile, “you’re my friend, I need you with me.”

Chloé’s eyebrows immediately rose, and she could feel tears pulled from her eyes as she rushed to hug the small girl, her friend.

“I know Nette! And I love you! I’ll… I’ll work up the courage to tell you what’s up, ok?”

Marinette had imminently returned the hug, and as Chloé collapsed into it, she held them both up. At Chloé’s words she smiled into the blonde’s ponytail. “S’okay Chlo, we all have secrets we don’t share.”

At that Chloé pulled away a bit shamefully. “Well…” her feet shuffle underneath her and she kept trying to look anywhere but at the girl in front of her. “I do kind of know one you don’t share… little bug.”

Marinette blinked at her in confusion before trying to respond, “What? No—I… what!”

As Marinette flustered and batted the air in front of her Chloé started laughing, “there’s only one person in Paris that could put up with me. I know I’m ridiculous.” She stopped laughing and looked at her friend. She smiled sweetly at her, “and there’s absolutely only one person that could be so tiny and still so forceful!”

Marinette just kept sputtering. Chloé had gotten past her and had resumed heading back towards home before turning back around. She saw Marinette still faced away, where she had been. “I’ll figure out how to tell you okay? A secret for a secret?” Marinette finally turned to face her, mouth agape, before her kindness took over.

“You… you still don’t have to!”

“I know,” Chloé smiled from ear to ear, “but I do want to, after all we’re the best of friends.” She winked at Marinette before sitting into her waiting town car.

The next day Chloé sat down next to Marinette and immediately was writing up a storm. Every few minutes she would sigh or stop and look puzzled before flipping the page and resuming a writing frenzy. By lunchtime she had all but given up. On the back of her notebook cover she wrote a note to Marinette.

“Do you know what asexual means?”

She held the notebook open so Marinette could see it, Marinette’s eyebrows drew together in confusion while she nodded affirmatively.

Chloé breathed out heavily before continuing under it briefly, before holding it open again for Marinette to see.

“I don’t know exactly how much, but I do know that I am.”

Marinette could see Chloé nervously biting her lip, and looking like it was taking all of her power to keep the notebook cover up so she could finish reading.

Marinette reached over to take Chloé’s hand, before looking directly into her eyes and nodding once quickly. Still holding her hand, she wrote in her own notebook a quick heart, before pushing the page towards Chloé.

Seeing the little heart Chloé’s face relaxed into a small smile, and squeezing their hands. The two ended up without notes for the day.

# ~~~ ツ ~~~

The two girls stepped back onto the school grounds laughing, with twin sighs they split into their classes. The majority of the day they were able to sit next to each other, no one wanting to sit near the social pariahs meant they didn’t need to argue with anyone over seating arrangements.

But they weren’t that lucky in every class, Marinette had her fashion and business classes, were Chloé was instead focusing on public works and finance. She had grown up seeing her father waste his money and had seen her share of self-serving public officials. Chloé was determined to be different. After resolving to be a hero worthy of working beside Ladybug, she could see how she herself had abused various systems, and wanted to work towards fixing those. Even if she would never wear a miraculous again, even if Ladybug would never trust her—she could help from a civilian side.

Marinette’s class choices were obvious. Her worn sketchbooks were a constant presence at school. After a few ‘accidents’ she never left her sketchbook anywhere. She had tried switching to a drawing tablet, and even a portable tablet, but neither gave the same paper feeling that she hadn’t realized was a key part to her sketch process. So she carried a beat up binder, every day she would return home, scan in any sketches she had done and unclip them from the binder.

In her room, Marinette had several folders and binders full of her different styles, and had subscribed to different cloud services to store the sketch scans digitally. Experience had taught her caution. One of the more secure storage services even had date tags, so in future if needed she could prove exactly when they had been uploaded.

Marinette settled into the last row of her classroom, and waited for Ms. Bustier to return from lunch. She pulled out her sketch binder and started doodling a haughty high-fashion dress/tux. Nobody would ever wear such a monstrosity. And Marinette didn’t have an interest going to work on the non-functional fashion. But the over-the-top designs where always fun to play with. They were a good way to break out of her comfort zones and break and blocks she had.

After the lunch of Chloé complaining of all the visitors stuffing the hotel for the Paris’ fashion week, Marinette was feeling inspired to work on a few weird things.

She didn’t have tickets to see the show. And she didn’t even plan on trying to attend this year. Last year she had used her Ladybug powers to get onto a nearby roof to watch people enter, and hoped to get peeks into the show itself. Instead she had ended up late to an akuma from the show.

As soon as the akuma alert had gone off, none other than Chat Noir had landed next to Marinette on the roof next to the show. He had insisted on carrying her back to her balcony, and had fretted over how she’d had managed to get onto the roof.

It had taken the ground shaking from where the akuma was for him to finally leave without an answer, finally allowing Marinette to transform into Ladybug and follow him back across the Seine.

So this year she planned on laying low. The Chat hadn’t stopped by to see her for a month now, and figuring another akuma would present itself, she planned to sketch on her balcony. Then she would be able to easily leap into the battle, and return without having to create any excuses.

Her night didn’t go as planned.

Sitting on her balcony surrounded by her plants, she slowly blew bubbles. Nino had left behind some half-used bottles. She watched the bubbles jiggle in the air before popping on leaves. A few had popped over her open sketchbook, leaving soapy circles on the open page. Marinette paused and reached for the book. Her head tilted to the side and she reached for a pencil.

She drew a woman through the bubble, and sketched a few different bubble-inspired clutches to match a bubble dress.

Putting her sketchbook back down, Marinette looked over the Parisian skyline. Marinette could almost hear a thump as her old partner would drop down next to her.

Chat Noir’s civilian side had needed to return his miraculous to her before work moved him away from Paris.

They had spent a short patrol together before she had worked the nerve to ask what was so serious he had to preface their scheduled patrol.

“So… Chat?” They both avoided looking at one another. “What was it you needed to talk about?”

“Bug,” he sounded so solemn, so unlike his usual energetic nicknaming. “I’m moving, moving out of Paris.” At that their eyes met.

Ladybug was in disbelief. Even in her worst nightmares, ones where they only found out one another’s real names after being beaten by Hawkmoth, ones where she had to find his family to say he didn’t make it out but he would always be her hero. In all her nightmares, he was there. It was the two of them against the world after all.

“What?”

“My Father, he thinks it would be the ‘most beneficial to the company,’” his voice dripped in disdain. “I tried to convince him against it. I’d say you know him; I guess by know you do know enough…”

The two original heroes of Paris sat in silence. Ladybug trying to imagine how she would handle now being alone. Chat Noir sat trying to come up with any way he could get out of moving. The closest he had come would be to spend his time in London with his Aunt and Felix, but, even that would be too far to stay as Ladybug’s partner.

“The horse miraculous? You could use it to keep up with akuma… and we could patrol less so it wouldn’t be such a hassle.”

“No, Bug.” Chat sighed and looked over the top of Paris. His city. “As much as I would stay by your side, your partner needs to be here. You need someone who can help, even while in Paris I missed fights.”

Ladybug looked into his cat-eyes while he gazed over Paris. As much as she wanted him to stay, to stay her partner he looked like he was already finished saying goodbye to the city.

Tonight was just for her.

Chat Noir looked up at Ladybug, his eyes shined with unshed tears.

“The real question is how to go about handing over my ring?” He asked with such finality, not giving her the chance to argue. So she didn’t.

Instead she told him exactly what she thought of him. She started from the beginning, admitting his speech to the news on the first day of their heroing had been what got her to transform again. That through all his puns and jokes she saw that he helped her stay balanced. And that, anytime she doubted herself he was there to make sure she kept going.

Eventually her throat had become too filled with emotions and they sat on the roofs of Paris just holding one another’s hands. Two heroes crying silently.

Once the tears had dried up, and all that was left were heavy sniffles, Ladybug’s yo-yo buzzed.

“Wow, bed-time.” It felt like no time had passed, and that generations had passed.

“Right.” Chat patted his legs as he stood up. “So, how do we do this.”

Ladybug paused again. “I… don’t know. I never imagined this. Never imagined I’d be doing this without you.”

Chat Noir smiled down at her. “Even if I’m not next to you Bugaboo, doesn’t mean I won’t still be cheering you on.”

She gave him a watery smile, before accepting his hand and stood up. Not wanting to leave, she held onto his hand. They continued to just stare over the Parisian skyline, before Ladybug sighed and looked back at him.

“Well, I don’t know who you are. I know you’re my partner, and my most trusted friend. So, if you think we need to detransform for me to take your ring and get you home safe, say the word, Kit-Chat.”

He looked down at their hands for a moment before sighing. “Can you believe after all this time I’m going to say no?”

His gaze rose to meet hers. Her eyebrows were drawn together as she listened to him continue, “I’ll have to let you know who I am, I’ll need help sneaking back into my room. But, I’ll be in Paris packing for a few days. And, seeing how this will go, I don’t want to risk Hawkmoth finding out who you are. That’d be… that would be a bad send off.”

Ladybug nodded quickly. While fully ready to reveal herself as his princess, it wasn’t her first choice. What she did not expect was to be helping Adrien Agreste back into his bedroom that night. After holstering her yo-yo, she looked around the room a bit slack-jawed. No matter how many times she visited Adrien’s room it still managed to feel like too much, and now it had that added element that this was where her cat would start patrols, would be during so many akuma alerts starting.

She looked back at the boy in front of her, “well, kitty, pound it?” Ladybug held up her fist, quivering only slightly as she held back more tears.

Adrien let out a watery laugh before they bumped for the last time.

Returning to the present, Marinette looked around her balcony noting all the changes. Since taking the Black Cat miraculous her good luck had gone out of control. Not in her life, but in the small things. Where before she would need to swap her plants around, now she had far too many. Because of the small good fortunes none of her plants died, even at a sudden frost they managed to stay strong and she didn’t have the heart to toss them out. So her balcony slowly overgrew, where a cat-boy would sometimes join her was now full of catnip plants she managed to cultivate.

Glancing at her phone to check the time, Marinette was surprised, it looked like with the Agreste’s taking time off from the Paris fashion show there hadn’t been anyone hurt enough to become akumatized.

Marinette kept in touch with Adrien as much as possible. She liked all of his social media posts, and had thought of hanging a map to track his travels. But that had seemed too pre-teen Marinette crush style. Instead she’d get the occasional photo of an Adrien selfie, someone from his father’s entourage in the background. Their trip of ‘cultural inspirations’ began in Tibet. They were now traveling around in the Americas.

Adrien had said even though they’d share a handful of rooms he still wouldn’t see his father often, sometimes days at a time would pass before he’d spot him in the hotel cafeteria sipping a coffee.

Even though he didn’t talk much to Marinette about it, he seemed disappointed that in close quarters his father still managed to avoid him.

Marinette finally figured out why Gabriel Agreste could manage to be so distant to his son even while traveling. Adrien had just posted a photo of him back in Paris. After sitting bolt upright and confirming that no, this wasn’t a remember-when photo, Marinette dashed out of the bakery, she tracked down where Adrien had mentioned he would be. She managed to convince him to finding Andre’s together. Starting as a concerned friend, something was tickling in the back of her mind, Marinette started putting pieces together.

Adrien’s posts were normally when he was feeling the loneliest. Normally when he hadn’t seen his Father. It was always around those times one of the vicious akumas would appear in Paris.

Now knowing that Adrien and Chat Noir were the same, she rethought his defense of his father. He had been so sure Gabriel Agreste was not Hawkmoth. But then why _did_ he have a miraculous book? Who else would be able to work from home, no boss keeping a watch for any lunch-time akuma, or to be scolded for staying late to release a midnight villain. For what other reason could a trip from the Agreste travels, to Paris in time for an akuma attack occur for. Every. Akuma.

Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth.


	2. E X P E C T A T I O N S

# C H A P T E R 2

E X P E C T A T I O N S

_“Now knowing that Adrien and Chat Noir were the same, she rethought his defense of his father. He had been so sure Gabriel Agreste was not Hawkmoth. But then why did he have a miraculous book? Who else would be able to work from home, no boss keeping a watch for any lunch-time akuma, or to be scolded for staying late to release a midnight villain. For what other reason could a trip from the Agreste travels, to Paris in time for an akuma attack occur for. Every. Akuma._

_Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth.”_

~~~ ツ ~~~

Marinette’s thoughts crashed back into the present yet again, as Adrien loudly put his phone back down onto the table.

After figuring out Adrien was back in Paris she had hunted him down to kidnap him for a lunch. He ended up not even having a full hour for his lunch break. Which judging by the awkward silence, and the two avoiding each other’s gaze, was going to work in their favor.

Marinette may not have a world-ending crush on Adrien but they hadn’t been able to develop as friends either.

“So… did you end up meeting any other superheroes?” Marinette tried another stab at making conversation. While she wished this was just a friendly get-together, she also needed to get as much Hawkmoth related information as possible; and unless she wanted to tell Adrien that she was Ladybug, she’d have to be subtle about it.

Adrien looked up from his phone, and smiled at her. “No, I’m a no-name enough everywhere else that no supervillains were targeting me. It was a nice break.”

The two smiled thinking of all the akuma issues they’d had, Marinette remembering plenty more as Ladybug and Chat Noir too.

“That’s good, I guess. Kind of disappointing not meeting them though, right? Not that you’d want to have as many run-ins though, not that you’re not worth going after either.” Marinette felt herself spiraling, spewing word-vomit, “I’m sure if I was a superhero I’d go after you. I mean if you were in danger, not to date. Not that a superhero wouldn’t want to date you!”

At that Marinette just groaned and gave up, and shook her head into her hands.

Adrien just kept watching her, his eyes were lit up in amusement. At least some things remained the same. He may not be Chat Noir, may not even live in Paris, but at least Marinette was still the same.

Watching her hide her face Adrien figured it was time to pull her out of the hole she though she’d dug herself into.

“Marinette! I know what you mean. But like you said, as much as I’d love to meet more heroes, staying safe is far more important. I had enough exciting times in Paris for my lifetime.”

Marinette looked up at him, eyes wide.

“Would you… do you wish you’d have more time as a superhero, -er adventures with superheroes?”

Adrien looked off into the passing crowds. Marinette’s question was similar to what he’d repeatedly gotten lost in thought about. So, he decided to share exactly what he’d decided on.

“I… value my experiences, but I’ve moved on. Of course if Ladybug needed help and I was there, I’d give her a hand in a heartbeat. But, traveling the world I got to see how heroes save the world without the miraculous cure’s ‘undo’ button.” Adrien looked down into his water, swirling ice against each other as he continued, “after seeing how other heroes have to deal with citizens, I don’t want to be in the way. Theres no cure if someone gets to close, and it made me realize how much pressure Ladybug must be under. If a civilian gets too close she has to decide to save them or not. So she either has to put herself on the line to rescue them, or assume she’s going to win, that they’ll come back fine after her cure.”

Adrien looked at Marinette. For a moment she worried that he had figured out he was talking about herself.

“The least I can do is stay out of the way right? That and staying calm is really all we can do to help her fight Hawkmoth.”

Marinette blinked at him, thinking about how other heroes have to handle collateral damages. As Ladybug she hadn’t ever thought about repair costs. After seeing people die she hadn’t let herself think too long about what would have happened to them had she lost those battles. Remembering how often Paris had an akuma destroy the Eiffel Tower, or how many akuma had the power to trap or transform people; how would any other superhero handle that.

Adrien and Marinette’s lunch returned to silence, both too lost in thoughts of Paris’ superheroes, and the heroes around the world.

Getting home from lunch Marinette was still pensive. It took Tikki twenty minutes to finally get the young girl to share her thoughts out loud.

“Tikki, how do other heroes do it?”

“Do what exactly, Marinette?” Tikki was still close to Marinette’s face after trying to break into her thoughts.

Marinette finally looked directly at the little red kwami, “how do they concentrate, knowing that things will stay the same? How many times did Chat and I get so hurt we wouldn’t have kept going if it weren’t for our magic?”

Worrying the hem of her shirt, Marinette continued, “I’ve never had to worry about civilians turning into enemies, or-or had to watch them get hurt knowing that it was my fault. How,” she took a large breath, “how do they focus on the bad-guys when their partners can’t even stand?”

Tikki stared almost slack-jawed as Marinette’s eyes filled. She hadn’t ever had to deal with non-magic heroes, she didn’t know how they did.

~~~ ツ ~~~

The next morning Marinette was the latest she’d been for years. She had stayed up late between researching and sobbing at the fate of heroes around the world.

When she walked into the classroom Lila’s court was in full session.

“Of course I introduced MDC to Papa Jagged! I couldn’t let my protégé miss out on such talent.” Hearing about her civilian alter-ego, her hard-earned business, and the unofficial Uncle that helped her create it; Marinette felt something inside her snap.

Marinette could care less about what Lila lied about. Part of why she created a pseudonym was so that she wouldn’t have to worry about handling a lot of PR. She didn’t worry about a teen girl claiming Jagged Stone as her protégé. All Marinette cared about was that she suddenly understood how all those heroes were able to keep going. Since after all she did it every day.

Saving the day was what was expected. And Marinette understood expectations.

Those classmates who thought themselves close to Marinette didn’t see anything wrong with her smile. But Chloé saw past her smile, and saw the rage burning in her eyes.

Marinette had an almost cruel smile plastered to her face most of the day. Chloé wanted to ask what was going on, she wanted to be able to help her friend, her every day and actual Ladybug. But, she was also terrified of whatever plans being turned onto her.

After all, they be friends now, but not too long ago Chloé would have been Marinette’s main target.

It wasn’t until lunch that Chloé had worked up the nerve, and they had the privacy to ask what Marinette was planning.

Marinette turned slowly to Chloé, sending a chill down the blonde’s spine.

“Oh, just something surprising.” Marinette’s smile turned pleasant. Much closer to what normally Chloé would see on her best friends face. But, after a day of the fake, practiced smile, seeing her friends regular smile, now without any of its warmth, she shivered again.

Chloé didn’t ask for more information.

But she did keep a watchful eye for dark butterflies.

Marinette felt herself snap. Hearing yet another of Lila’s lies finally let her realize what kept so many heroes going. They were expected to save everyone. Even with partners broken and bleeding beside them they had to beat whatever baddie they were facing. The only acceptable way to get out of it was to die.

How many heroes had died because of expectations others had for them? Or how often did Parisian civilians run through an akuma attack _expecting_ her to save them. _Expecting_ a cure to come and rescue them from any danger they got themselves into.

The rest of the day Marinette fought against herself. How could she maintain expectations, while also dismantling any around her. Could she let herself not care about civilians in crossfire?

At lunch Chloé asked what she was planning. Marinette mentally scolded herself, and then stepped further down into her madness.

Normally she would have tried to climb back up into stability. But she didn’t want to do as expected today, and after talking to Chloé she felt her smile become a little more real.

Marinette ended up using her back row seating to her advantage after lunch break. She brought up Adrien’s posts, and read through the stories he shared on them. It seemed he had had a few run-ins with heroes in America; but only in passing.

Her mood lifted a bit more, these heroes, vigilantes, didn’t talk to civilians. Marinette detoured to look more into them. As Ladybug the most annoying (besides being interrupted for akuma battles) was trying to get around reporters after fighting for hours.

If she could find out why these vigilantes weren’t expected to stay and explain themselves, she could start her project.

She wanted people to not know about her. If people couldn’t expect anything from Ladybug, they’d grow up. Marinette would be able to reappear more easily. Instead of trying to lie her way out of how she knew specifics before showing up as Ladybug, she could just swing off, without talking to people expecting her to give them all the information she had.

Marinette sighed as her phone’s akuma alert went off. Today, however, she wasn’t in a rush. With a sleepy smile she decided changes everyone’s expectations would begin now.

Ladybug didn’t ever arrive on scene. Instead, a new red and black heroine showed up, well after Ladybug normally would have. The Parisian’s were terrified.

Instead of rush out of the school as soon as her phone went off, she calmly shut the alarm off, and waited for school to close. After an announcement was made for all students to return home, she casually made her way home, watching with suppressed annoyance at how many were making their way _towards_ the akuma.

Once Marinette had greeted her parents, still on shift in the bakery, she entered her bedroom, still calm. Tikki burst out of her purse, vibrating with nerves for her chosen.

“Marinette?” Tikki tentatively said.

“We’ll head out now, Tikki, don’t worry,” Marinette said with a smile. Tikki was still filled with nerves, but Marinette’s calm was infectious.

Calling her transformation, Marinette caught a black movement in her mirror. She wasn’t in a terrible rush so she went to inspect it, and found nothing. But, when she turned around she realized that she was what was different.

Her Ladybug suit was still visible. But instead of solid latex, she now looked ready for a battle. The Ladybug suits legs were tucked into sturdy, mid-thigh boots similar in style to her multi-mouse persona’s. Her hair was completely covered in a black hood, her eyes no longer had a mask, but the lower half of her face did. Stepping back, Marinette saw that, if covered, her eyes began to glow under the hoods shadow, which lead her to noticing the silk-y red texture that the hood was lined in. The hood connected onto a black vest that covered her torso loosely, and tucked into a new bulky belt that hung just above her waist. The Ladybug yoyo fit snuggly in its own placement on the belt. From the yo-yo’s holster, two wings of fabric snuck out from under the belt, and hung around either side of her leg, like a ladybug’s shell. Her hands and arms now even had gloves to match her boots leaving her old suits spots visible on just her bicep, and above the boots on her thighs.

Deciding to inspect her new suit further later, the new Ladybug swung into battle.

Marinette was tired. Because of the current popularity at the Bourgeois hotel, Chloé hadn’t been able to help her take down Hawkmoth’s akuma this time. Luckily it was just Gigantitan again.

After purifying the akuma, Ladybug paused. She gazed around with a critical eye, Gigantitan had been easy enough to take down, there were a few street lights ripped out of the ground, and some new potholes; but Paris was still intact. Her new gloves had let her hold onto her yo-yo and a stop-sign easier than ever, and had used it as a large lolli-pop as a distraction early on.

Ladybug was jarred out of thought by a reporter spinning her around to face their stations camera. She was tired, she was upset, and a stranger had just spun her around.

Ladybug’s glare was fed by Marinette’s tiredness, they couldn’t see her mouth, but they were able to see the slits her eyes had become while glaring directly at the reporter, and the camera caught a red glow as the Ladybug’s head tilted down at them.

Oblivious to her any expression the reporter immediately bombarded her with questions, “are you the new Ladybug? What happened to the old one? Or are you just a temporary replacement?”

Hearing the reporter ask questions, more hurried over to get their own angles, and added more of the same questions.

Feeling her anger rise again, Marinette remembered her research from the day, and felt it was time to subvert some more expectations.

In Mandarin, she said, “if you expect me to answer every question why not just ask who I am, maybe you want my bank notes too?” Before she glared down the rest of the reporters, and cast out her yo-yo behind her.

Marinette de-transformed and reentered her room before giggling to herself a bit. Landing on her chaise she looked over to her mirror, “Tikki? Why did my costume change?”

Tikki flew back over to her, carrying a cookie with her still, “there’s plenty of reasons why a Ladybug’s costume can change.” Tikki paused as she chewed and thought, “I think this time you’ve had a big enough change of heart that the magic decided it should reflect that!”

Biting into her bottom lip, Marinette asked, “are you upset about it?”

“Marinette, why would I be upset! It means you’re growing.” Tikki paused, “But, we should probably discuss why so much so fast. And why you decided not to talk to the reporters today.”

Marinette flopped fully into the chaise, “I don’t know! All today I’ve been reading about heroes and how their all expected to save the day no matter what. And there’s so many that don’t have to deal with talking with reporters at all! I guess, in the moment, where he swung me fully around, by the way! In the moment, I just wanted to do something that nobody expected.”

Tikki hummed and lazily floated around the room, thinking about what Marinette had just said. “Well, I may wish we had gone about it gentler; this does seem like the perfect opportunity to be a new Ladybug! And one that can’t answer questions too!” Tikki’s buzzing became louder as she got more excited, “not to mention, not speaking French is almost perfect! No one will suspect a Paris-native, and no questions means absolutely no hints towards your identity, too!” As Tikki talked she had started laps around the room, and sped up as she got more excited about what she was saying, but stopped suddenly as Marinette’s phone started playing “the Flight of the Bumblebee.”

Knowing Chloé’s ringtone, Marinette picked up without even bothering to look at her phone, “Chlo-Bee!” Marinette drew out the vowels of her best friend’s name as almost sung her greeting.

“Oh good, you’re alive! Mind filling me in to what’s happening?” Chloé had a way of making you feel incredibly guilty, while also undoubtly loved.

“I got a new outfit.” Marinette elongated ‘outfit’ so it took the same amount of time to say as the rest of her sentence, before quickly adding, “I figured I’d have some fun. I’m more surprised you’ve heard so quickly!” Marinette sat up and brought her phone over to her computer.

“Well then, it’s good to see you coming out of you shell little bug, and since you’ve obviously not seen the headlines, you should look at them with me. Some of them are utterly hilarious!”

Marinette laughed as Chloé read a few of the day’s early ones, all asking where Ladybug was when it took more than a half hour for their heroine to show.

After Marinette’s computer was fully booted, she pulled up her own share of headlines and they read them off to one another, while reading what Paris thought of its ‘new’ Ladybug.

“Listen to this one Mari-bug! Hibernating Heroine, Ladybug now sleeping on the job, and Parisian’s suffer the consequences. You’d think the city could handle a sign and lights on their own.”

Laughing Marinette read off her current favorite, “the Scarlet Hood, Paris’ pest. Local heroine, Ladybug, has been forced out of the hero business. We only know that this red hooded ‘hero’ isn’t apart of Hawkmoth’s team because at least she has some sense of color coordination.”

They finally stopped searching for new articles after finding ones trying to use the new Ladybug’s lack of French to halt immigration, Marinette remembered her discovery, “Hey Chlo-Bee? Remind me to tell you the information I think I got?”

“Well of course, you’ve peaked my interest with that! Any hints for me now?”

“No sadly, I guess you’ll just have to wait till I see you,” to which they both hung up, transformed and went to meet for patrol; Marinette trying to figure out the best way to tell Chloé that her childhood friends father was most likely Hawkmoth.

~~~ ツ ~~~

Across an ocean, hidden deep underground a computer began to send off news alerts for a “Red Hood” in Paris.


	3. Discovered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where truths are uncovered and the author has no beta-readers. (And is also alive! Whoop!)

# C H A P T E R 3

D I S C O V E R E D

_“Well of course, you’ve peaked my interest with that! Any hints for me now?”_

_“No sadly, I guess you’ll just have to wait till I see you,” to which they both hung up, transformed and went to meet for patrol; Marinette trying to figure out the best way to tell Chloé that her childhood friends father was most likely Hawkmoth.”_

~~~ ツ ~~~

Convincing Chloé that Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth was easy. Convincing Chloé not to immediately go after the man was not easy. Luckily Ladybug was already on the scene when she found out, unluckily so was Kitty Noir, who was Chloé.

After Adrien had left Paris with his father, on what seemed to be a cover, and a hunt for more miraculous knowledge; Ladybug had been left without her Cat to keep the balance. Marinette and Chloé’s isolation in class had already brought them together, and Marinette had seen Chloé change.

Marinette was there when Chloé saw Lila manipulate the class for more attention. She was there when Chloé paled when Lila had asked Sabrina for a copy of her work, and Marinette had seen Chloé a month later work up the nerve to apologize to Sabrina for having expected the same of her. Ladybug saw Chloé set up her own accidents to save, and years later she saw Chloé helping lead people to shelters to wait out akuma attacks. Ladybug had seen Chloé do this with Windy Weather, an akuma that had become jealous of Stormy Weathers stronger akuma-form; Ladybug saw Chloé willing out in windy weather, her hair buffeted by magical winds, and she was pretty sure she even some sort of tiny animal scurry out of it when the wind lulled for a moment. Marinette had seen Chloé change. She had seen Chloé try, and eventually succeed at being a hero.

So when Ladybug needed a new partner, she chose her best friend.

Who had apparently figured out Adrien was the old cat. When the post-akuma paparazzi showed up, Chloé, as the new black cat, decided to replicate the painfully on-the-nose name her childhood friend used, and introduced herself as ‘Kitty Noir’ before vaulting away.

Ladybug had managed to catch Kitty Noir during a wild cross-Paris sprint. Hopefully any who spotted the two thought they were training, not fighting and hopefully not causing a panic for a non-existent akuma.

Kitty Noir was upside down, wrapped in yo-yo string against a phone antenna, her hair had gone wild, and looked much closer to Chat Noir’s style than her usual blonde Lady Noir braid.

“Let me down, Bug-brain!”

\- - - - - -

_“Across an ocean, hidden deep underground a computer began to send off news alerts for a “Red Hood” in Paris.”_

~~~ ツ ~~~

Jason was done with his family. He’d just gotten back to Gotham after a long-mission and just wanted to sleep in his own bed.

Throwing his gear bag by the door he kicked off his boots and left his keys on the kitchen counter. He could clean his guns later, now was sleep time. Or it would be, if his phone would stop going off. From parking his bike in the underground to the time to get to his apartment it’d been continually ringing.

Sighing, Jason debated just leaving it with his keys; but knowing his family, who were the only ones annoying enough to keep calling, the entire bat-clan would show up at his door. The worst part was that if they were this desperate to get in touch with him it would be important, and important meant not getting to his precious, perfect bed.

He compromised.

Flopping forward, lower half not even fully making it onto the bed, he breathed in the sweet smell of home, and waited for his family to call him again. And they did, seeing the contact calling him made him sit up straight. If the demon spawn was calling it’d have to be serious, most likely night-life related.

“TODD!” Jason could hear the rest of the clan yelling in the background.

“What do you want, demon spawn?” Jason breathed the words out, if they were home in the cave maybe he would get to spend some much needed time home alone. As much as the outlaws had become a team-family for him, home was home, and alone time was best spent _completely_ alone.

“Where are you, Todd?”

Jason rubbed his forehead and eyes, not bothering to try and decipher what reasoning his family could have to find where he was. All his recent business had its loose ends tied up and they wouldn’t be able to undo how he had taken care of it.

“I just got home, I am laying on my bed, and I want to be asleep.” Jason was able to hear the huffs as someone knew grabbed onto the phone.

“Home? From Paris?” Dick said, Damian huffing in the background; something about ‘his phone.’

Jason knew his brothers were good at tracking, himself included. Tim would’ve been able to track his phone, and he figured there was still at least one tracker from Damian somewhere on him, ‘just in case.’ And Dick hadn’t called asking him to go on a man-date with him for at least a month now, including the week he’d been gone. Jason knew his _little_ brothers could track him, and his older brother hadn’t been trying to find him.

But Jason still bristled, “No, Dick, not Paris.” Let them figure out if he was calling him by name or not.

Damian cut back in, “Tt, if not Paris, where?”

Glaring at his ceiling, Jason debated how to respond. “Taking care of business,” There was a pause, if his family was letting a pause drag on that long they really did need to know where, “I didn’t leave the country.” On the other end of the call, his family began arguing, Jason hung up, and got to sleep.

\- - - - - -

_“Let me down, Bug-brain!”_

“I need you to calm down first Kit-Kat.”

Kitty Noir closed her eyes, and seemed to be collecting herself. She looked almost at peace except for her hair being chase-tossed, and the fact she was still hanging upside down. Instead of a peaceful exhale the Parisian rooftops had the peaceful silence broken with a shredding scream.

The unnamed Ladybug looked around a bit warily. Her and her friend _had_ been reading through how poorly the public currently thought of the ‘new’ bug of Paris, they didn’t need photos of her tying up the current black cat to get out as well.

After her scream, Kitty breathed heavily for a few moments, “Alright Bug… I’m good.”

The unnamed Ladybug eyed the Cat for a moment before untangling her yo-yo and holstering it onto her belt.

Kitty Noir, now right-side up leaning against the chimney eyed the new Ladybug suit. “Those articles didn’t have any clear shots of you, and I was expecting them to be overplaying how deadly you seem, not underselling it.” A wicked smile broke across her face, “I like it.”

Ladybug let out a breathy laugh and sat down next to Kitty Noir. “Tikki says I’m growing, that and I’ve had enough of a change of heart that the suit is reflecting it.”

Kitty eyed her partner for a moment, before gazing across the rooftops below them, “well it’s about time I guess. You’ve been different for a while though. Do you think finally figuring out who we’re really fighting against was the last straw?”

Ladybug hummed next to her and focused on a distant roof thinking through her next few words, “if only it was so simple. I was looking into other heroes there are so many stories of heroes giving up everything, which is fine, heroic, and ‘for the greater good,’ but it just seemed like everyone expected them to do so, and that the only way to stop sacrifing for everyone else was to die or turn against everyone.”

She could feel Kitty Noir’s gaze on her as she spoke, but she refused to look over at her until she felt like she’d gotten out all of her thoughts. “All these heroes go and give up everything to make sure everyone else in the world is okay, they don’t have a cure to undo the hard parts, and they have to watch friends, family and their partners in pain while they do it! And everyone expects them to be okay, and to keep going-even if that means they die in the process, and to be okay with that!”

Ladybug turns her head to Kitty Noir, “and I’m not okay with that.”

Slowly turning towards that roof again, an almost feral grin spread under her new medical-looking Ladybug mask, “so, I’m going to change what’s expected.”

\- - - - - -

_Jason hung up, and got to sleep._

He managed to sleep the entire night without interruption. Jason woke up slowly, one eye opening to see his still grey apartment, the splurge for black-out curtains well worth the extra cost. Both eyes blinking awake, Jason sat up and tried to remember why he had expected to be woken up.

Right, his family had called him. He laid back down into his blankets, still warm. Jason dozed a moment before sighing and reaching around for his phone, he’d gone to sleep right after hanging up… ah, under the pillow.

He saw the missed phone calls from before he finally had answered, and a few missed messages from some city contacts.

Instead he opened up a puzzle game he’d gotten into while on his trip until he ran out of lives and finally stood up for the day. Jason plugged his phone in before finally jumping into his shower, and turning the heat as high as it could, he hadn’t been able to figure out who he shared his hot water with, but he was determined to use it himself and rinse off his travels.

He found a ‘fresh’ pair of jeans next to his bed, and kept the towel wrapped around his shoulders, occasionally using it to try and dry his hair faster while cooking a decent breakfast. Jason had decided that he’d visit his family. Something they thought involving him had happened, and if he wanted to know more he’d have to go and find out himself.

Stomach full, and as mentally prepared as he could get he made his way over to the Wayne manor.

Which was still in chaos form the night before. Jason made his way through the building, following the loud arguing, the loud _batcave_ arguments. Entering the room, only Cassandra noticed him, civilian riding helmet settled onto his lap he leaned over to ask about what was happening.

Before she could respond, there was a tray of cookies in front of him.

“The all-knowing Alfred, here to share a crumb of wisdom with us mere mortals?” Jason said as he took a few of the cookies from the tray.

“How much has Miss. Cassandra explained so far?” Alfred set the tray down on the end table beside him.

“Nothing yet,” Jason paused and glanced over as Dick’s hands somehow flailed around even more energetically, “I got a call last night asking if I was in Paris, and thought I’d come find out why I’ve missed out on my own trip.”

Alfred hummed lightly in response, also observing Dick’s increasing range, “the bat-computers alerts for Red Hood were triggered, and the point of origin was Paris, France.” He moved the cookie tray to Jason and Cassandra’s couches other end table, further away from the brothers.

Jason’s felt his brows draw together, “why are they so worked up over another copy-cat? We’ve dealt with plenty before.”

Before he could continue Alfred interrupted, “it seems that Paris is involved with a situation. The Hood alerts merely brought it to our attention. Your brother, the young master Tim, was up most the night researching to update the family.” Alfred bit into one of the cookies, a hand underneath to catch any falling crumbs, Jason blinked in confusion, and fit the rest of his cookie into his mouth to make sure he would stay quiet.

While they chewed Jason started trying to listen to his brother’s argument.

\- - - - - -

_“So, I’m going to change what’s expected.”_

~~~ ツ ~~~

Alya was starting to get upset. It had been months since the original Ladybug had been benched like the rest of them, and she still hadn’t managed to get an interview with the new one. The Scarlet-Bug was a great hero, but for a reporter wanting to know more about all things Ladybug, Alya was struggling to make a connection.

The first Ladybug Paris had, had agreed to an interview pretty quickly, and had set Alya up as the Lady-blogger. At least no one had been able to get more than a few rushed lines from her, and she didn’t even speak French!

Alya’s pencil twirling slowed down as she realized, Marinette was who set up the first interview with Ladybug, maybe she could have more connections?

Alya had already asked Lila if she had heard why the first Ladybug had been retired, and if she could share anything about the new one. She was definitely holding some big secrets about Ladybug, the first one. And, she didn’t think Lila spoke whatever language the new bug spoke, and probably wouldn’t want to get to close to the girl that replaced her best friend as Paris’ superhero.

So, maybe it was time to bring out the big connections; anytime Alya had made a Ladybug-breakthrough Marinette had been there. She twisted the lucky charm bracelet Marinette had made her a while ago, maybe it was lucky because it was from Marinette? That line of thought kept growing, how was Marinette able to get her that meeting, and hadn’t she even been seen helping catch different akuma over the years. The lack of new leads must be getting to her more than she thought.

Standing up she grabbed her bag and made her way through her home to the door, even if it seemed crazy; Marinette had to have something to do with Ladybug; and she planned on finding out what.

How long had it been since she had visited the bakery? Before walking over to the Dupain-Cheung bakery she hadn’t even thought of the last time she visited, but walking up to the door made her realize the seasons had changed since the last time she had. Alya knew she had gotten closer to Lila the past few months, but hadn’t realized how much she hadn’t been talking to Marinette. After Marinette had insisted that it was Lila framing her, Alya didn’t try to force the two together, and since Marinette began sitting with Chloé, she hadn’t felt the need to make sure she had company throughout the day.

Walking into the bakery, she was surrounded by warm, bread-scented air, and expected a greeting from whichever of Marinette’s parents was manning the storefront. When Alya didn’t hear any greeting for her she glanced up to see why, and it seemed like her friend’s parents just hadn’t recognized her. Alya waited for Sabine to finish ringing up the customer in front of her, a tall, like crazy tall, dark-haired boy.

Once he left with an obscene amount of baked goods, Alya stepped up to the counter and smiled at Sabine, who smiled back and greeted her.

“Oh, Alya! It’s been awhile.” Sabine’s smile was tight, but not unfriendly.

“Hey, Sabine. Is Marinette in? I hadn’t realized how long it’s been…”

Alya trailed off. She really hadn’t realized how little attention she had given Marinette recently, and was trying to figure out how she could fix that in the future. And if it’d be rude to ask for a favor, now that she had realized how little she had paid Marinette attention.

Sabine’s tight smile loosened a bit, and it looked like she was thinking, hopefully recalling if Marinette was home, and not judging Alya for not showing up until now. Finally, she responded,

“I believe she’s working up in her room, did you want to go see her?”

The vaguely hopeful tone Sabine gave her at that calmed some of Alya’s nerves about asking. She eagerly nodded, and worked her way past where customers would be allowed. Before she was able to fully escape, Sabine asked her to bring a few of the older pastries upstairs to Marinette, and make sure she eat them, or something else, before she left.

Alya got up to Marinette’s room, and knocked before opening the door and peered into the room. It seemed empty. She stepped in and called for Marinette, her mom had said she would be here hadn’t she.

Alya ended up setting the plate down on her desk, and spinning lazily back and forth in Marinette’s desk chair, snacking on a few of the pastries before she heard something land on Marinette’s balcony.

Quickly getting up, Alya rushed over to the balcony, if an akuma was attacking she’d need to make sure to get footage, and maybe finally get close enough to get clearer Scarlet Bug photos. She’d managed to get people to call the new Ladybug Scarlet Bug, but until the hero herself accepted or called herself something else, any name wouldn’t become official.

She froze looking out the window, right on the balcony was Paris’ Scarlet Bug.

Who was looking right back through the glass at her.

\- - - - - -

Marinette stared into her room from the balcony, staring back at her was Alya. She blinked and hoped Alya couldn’t read the panic under her mask, she had been about to detransform and stroll into her room, before she had just happened to glance in and see her former best friend almost pressed to the glass windows.

Thawing out of her panic, the adrenaline of nearly being unmasked settled into a buzzing background energy, her mind whirred as she tried to figure out a way to explain why she was on this balcony. For now, she settled on slowly tilting her head at Alya, like she was trying to inspect the girl.

Alya came out of her bedroom, and stood awkwardly on her balcony.

“Guess that explains how she was able to contact Ladybug…”

Scarlet Bug moved her head the other way, trying to remind herself that since she hadn’t spoken as Scarlet Bug yet, she controlled all of the information about her hero-self again. Remembering that the girl in front of her wasn’t just an ex-friend, but was also her Ladybug personas closest follower, she lifted her chin, hoping to convey a judging-air that demanded answers for Alya’s presence.

“Err-right. I guess all the heroes must stop here, and Marinette loves her plants.” Alya touched one of Marinette plants leaves and a soft smile formed as she said that.

Marinette raised an eyebrow at Alya, hoping she’d get to explaining why she was here, and not read into heroes being on her balcony too much more.

Alya looked back up at the Scarlet Bug, and she seemed a bit anxious. Scarlet Bug was a lot less approachable than Ladybug was, she was also much quieter.

“I-I didn’t realize that me and Marinette had drifted so much,” Alya paused and glanced away from the Parisian skyline, back at the hero she was talking… at. “It seems obvious now, I didn’t want to hurt either of my friends by forcing them to be together, and didn’t even notice I was only focusing on one.”

Marinette couldn’t help the surprise on her face as she heard Alya talk about her. All this time she had assumed Alya had known the two of them weren’t close, and that she had been choosing to keep Marinette further and further from the rest of the class by doing so. Luckily, Alya was reconsumed in her rant, and her gaze had drifted back towards the Eiffel tower in the distance.

“…after all Marinette’s always been so self-reliant; or I guess as long as I’ve known her. Nino says she wasn’t always so confident.” Alya was obviously thinking out loud, and Marinette didn’t know how to stop her ranting. Marinette also was interested in hearing more, what she had thought of as a betrayal was just them drifting. Even if it wouldn’t have happened if Lila hadn’t been distracting her, it meant that they probably would have still drifted apart, and that her classmates weren’t being malicious to her, mostly.

“…maybe I should just leave before she gets back. She probably hates us all now.” Alya looked so sad, Marinette had to believe that she really did regret what had happened between them, and as an anonymous party to the situation, to Alya, she had no reason to hide anything in order to spare anyone’s feelings.

Before Alya could continue Scarlet Bug put a gloved hand on the girl’s shoulder, drawing her attention back to her and finally stopping all of the girl’s thoughts from tumbling out of her mouth. Alya’s eyes were watery.

“Right, thanks for listening, I guess?” Alya looked up at this new heroes’ eyes. She wasn’t sure she’d get used to the new Ladybug fashion. Although Alya could appreciate the half-skirt version of ladybug wings on her side were much cooler than plain spandex.

Marinette figured that was as much of a cue to leave as she could get, and pulled an old fashioned Ladybug-Bug-Out salute before jumping back off of the balcony, landing street-level and returning to her ordinary civilian self. She turned to exit the alley she had jumped into, before turning and seeing a tall boy holding two large bags staring open-mouthed at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this took so long, when I first started this I planned at most a month between chapters. That didn't happen and I can't swear it won't again, but thank you everyone who has said anything on this, I read and reread comments much more than I post, and am so warmed and motivated by the well-wishes given out.


	4. C H A P T E R 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She turned to exit the alley she had jumped into, before turning and seeing a tall boy holding two large bags staring open-mouthed at her.”  
> ~~~ ツ ~~~

C H A P T E R 4

_“She turned to exit the alley she had jumped into, before turning and seeing a tall boy holding two large bags staring open-mouthed at her.”_

~~~ ツ ~~~

Timothy Drake had only been in Paris a week, somehow he had already uncovered one of the city’s biggest secrets. He knew who was behind the Ladybug mask.

Well, he knew what they looked like. Vaguely. He hadn’t had much sleep before taking a break to walk around the city.

Barely a week into being in Paris and he had grown attached to casual strolls whenever he felt, much less stressful than the vigilant speed-walking he had to do just to get to street parking. The casualty of his focus meant that the girl going around as Paris’ new Ladybug had already scrambled up a buildings fire escape before he could focus in on her features.

“She had dark hair… I think”

Tim’s focus returned to the cooling bags of pastries at his feet. He wasn’t supposed to be aware on his breakfast walk. He had felt so good remembering “Paris’ best bakery,” and now the pastries were cold.

“What else can you remember? You’ve seen her face now!”

It took a minute before Tim was able to get his tongue to work around the cotton filling his mouth, _I need more coffee,_ “She had pigtails, maybe.”

“You heard him! The World’s Greatest Detective thinks she had pigtails!”

~~~ ツ ~~~

Marinette reentered her now empty bedroom, and flopped onto her chaise lounge, grasping the nearby pillows and screaming into them. Someone in Paris knew who she was, they’d go to the all the local news stations and surely get all the hot-time spots to announce that the clumsy baker kid was the surly Ladybug, and all of Paris would be at her door demanding she give up the miraculous, get the old Ladybug to come back and explain why she’d pretended not to understand anyone and be rude.

She’d have to move out, her parents run out of business and living on the street in shame as the parents of Paris’ failed hero; she’d need to go back to a bubbly bright Ladybug persona to try and appease the city, Lila would be back to saying how it was her idea to have the first Ladybug be the hero, and that Marinette was always mean, just look at how she behaved as the hero!

“Marinette!”

Marinette blinked, and her eyes refocused on Tikki. Sometime in her inner monologue she’d dropped her pillow in her lap.

“Marinette! It will be fine!” Tikki flew closer to her face, hugging her cheek once she could tell that Marinette was present again. “They were a stranger, even though that means we don’t know who they are-they don’t know you! It just means that the magic that helps hide who you are won’t work on them anymore.”

Marinette released the breath she’d been unconsciously holding out in a big puff, and before she could start vocalizing some of the catastrophizing Tikki continued.

“What are the odds you end up meeting a random tourist in Paris! He definitely wasn’t a local. He was out right after an akuma fight! Maybe we’re even lucky and it was his last day in France! Or after seeing an akuma battle he decides to leave France and take a vacation on the coast.”

Listening to Tikki explain the chances that she’d ever meet, and have to introduce herself to the boy was calming her down. The bit inside of her whispering her impending failure, and that another small step was paved to her defeat and possible end-of-the-world kept her fingers worrying the edges of the pillows fabric, until all of the stuffing was in a puddle on her feet.

She jerked to her feet, hands still strangled in the now-stringy bits of pillow sack, the pillow stuffing scattering around her, lighter pieces caught an air current and floated further around her room. One particularly motivated piece floated up and stuck to her mouth, leaving fluff-dust once it fell back past her lap and onto the floor.

“Marinette” Her mother called, pushing into her room and seeing her daughter holding the fabric remains of a pillow, feet coated in still settling stuffing, and trying to spit away fluff off of her face. “Marinette, are you okay? I thought I heard screaming.”

Giving up blowing off the mouth-fuzz, Marinette managed to unravel the fabric from her fingers, freeing them up to pick away the last few wet pieces of pillow stuffing.

“Just blowing off some steam from school, Maman. Sorry to of disturbed the piece!” Marinette smiled at her mother, as annoying as vigilant parents could be to a teen superhero, knowing that her Maman was willing to stop work to check on her daughter because of possibly hearing something from her room was touching.

“Oh dear, did something happen when Alya came up? Your Father and I have noticed she hasn’t come around as much lately.”

Marinette’s smile turned into a thoughtful, sad smile, “We actually talked about that some,” her mother guided her to the edge of her desk. Marinette took a seat in her chair, leaving her mother to lean against the edge, away from her pillow-massacre on the other end of the room.

“Did you two have an argument earlier?”

“Not really,” Marinette paused briefly, wondering how to explain what she had thought happened, and how today had proved it wrong. “I guess, we just... drifted apart a bit. There’s that new girl that I don’t mix well with? Alya really likes her company, and didn’t want to push me and the girl into hanging out, and since the other girl is newer and doesn’t have as much to do, they ended up spending a lot of time together.”

“She mentioned that she hadn’t noticed how long it had been since she visited…” Sabine left the end open so that Marinette could continue, and add on what had happened between the two girls.

“Yea… I just thought she got bored of me or something. Like, the new shiny thing came along and I was just the old worn-out toy she didn’t want to play with anymore.” Marinette paused and Sabine shifted closer, ready to pull her daughter into a hug if it seemed she would need some physical motherly support. “It’s still a bit of a shift to realize she just hadn’t noticed she left me alone.”

“Do you think she’ll do more with you now that she has noticed?” Sabine could feel a bit of her heart hardening against her daughter’s classmate, seeing her normally happy girl so quiet for so long had been tolling. She didn’t want her Marinette crawling back because they claimed to be sorry.

“I…” Marinette paused before meeting her eyes, “I think our friendship was over a while ago, but it was nice to know it wasn’t malicious, I guess.” Marinette could feel the familiar emptiness when thinking of her classmates, but now the edges were softer. The happy memories were a little less sour, the thought of seeing them at school again less painful, and much closer to the neutral she had thought her feelings had already reached.

Sabine leaned down and kissed her daughter’s forehead, and pushed back her bangs to read her face clearer. “Well, even if there’s still pain there, it seems like it was a few steps towards healing that hurt.”

Marinette nodded lightly.

Sabine returned a small nod, and wiped her hands against her bakery apron, before clearing her throat and saying that it was about time she returned and made sure that Tom hadn’t burned any of the good pastries before the afternoon rush.

Between Tikki calming her down about her secret identity, and being able to talk through the start of her new classmate related feelings, Marinette was feeling very calm.

She put that calm energy into some of her recent commissions.

~~~ ツ ~~~

It was another month of Paris’ unique monotony before Tim got a break in figuring out who he saw under the Ladybug mask.

One of the more destructive akuma was rampaging through the tourist hot-spots of Paris. Across the city, safe high up in one of the newly acquired Wayne-rooms, Tim, Dick, and Damian were tracking the fight, and gathering intel.

Dick had been put in charge of keeping track of the different enemies, since recurring enemies happened often he gather information on weak points, fighting styles and anything else they could. Today’s battle was against a child, akuma-name “Gigantitan.”

Damian had been put in charge of analyzing the heroes, taking notes on fighting styles, and possible training they had gone through, or could currently be gaining.

And Tim had chosen to try and focus on the Ladybug. He had been assigned to keep track of possible secrets so that they could find out more about the heroes, but he wanted to make up for seeing a completely ununiformed Ladybug heroine, and only being able to confirm main features when she was in and out of her hero uniform.

“How old do you think they are?” Dick asked.

Damian clicked his tongue and teeth, trying to keep them, ‘focused,’ but probably just as bored.

“The Ladybug is around Demon Spawn here’s age. Kitty seems pretty close, so probably the same range.”

Tim hadn’t thought much of his response, he hadn’t even dropped the binoculars he had been using to track the Bug through the city, but at the silence Dick wasn’t trying to fill, he pulled them away from his face and glanced over to see why Dick hadn’t added any input.

Both his brother where staring at him, eyebrows drawn.

“What?”

Tim was getting déjà vu from being questioned about obvious Ladybug questions from a month ago.

“Walk us all through everything again.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

Tim sighed, and began with listing just what he knew about the Ladybug. When he got to his estimated age range his family stopped him again and asked him to explain the reasoning.

“What do you mean? You don’t see it? We all know how to read people, she’s energetic, and aware of her body, but still lacking some confidence. Even putting aside how she behaves she doesn’t have any abnormal signs of aging, and unless you buy into the immortal warrior idea from the start of the Hawkmoth incidents, she obviously a teenager. I predict she’s still in school, probably nearing the end, since she’s able to show up throughout the day, she doesn’t have a demanding job during normal work hours. Theoretically, that could mean she’s rich, or unemployed but given her age, it probably means she’s in school, probably one that needs better akuma planning if she’s able to escape the attention of teachers and staff long enough to become the Ladybug.

The whole of his family in the room looked at him in silence, a rarity when they were all gathered together.

“Tim,” Dick began, “when we look at the bug, we can only tell that it’s a girl under the mask, and we only know that the basics match up when she’s not suited up because of you.” Dick looked around the room at the rest of their family, confirming what he was explaining to Tim.

Jason continued, “if I had to of guessed I would have put her in her early 30’s.”

Tim looked at him, concerned and confused at how far off that seemed.

Bruce was nodding along while adding that he would have guessed somewhere around Dick’s age range, or somewhere between Dick and his owns ages; around the rest of the Justice Leagues age.

Tim was feeling more and more confused, maybe his guess was just as far off. They all had the same training, Bruce had even taught him most of the finer details. Even if some of that training was before Bruce had known he was teaching Tim how to find out identities.

“I believe,” Alfred’s voice cut through some of his self-doubt turmoil, “that the nature of this ‘miraculous’ magic must hide the identity of those wielding it. Since the young Master Tim has seen both the civilian and hero identities, and has seen the transition between the two, he must be at least a bit immune. We should default to his ideas on her identity over whatever we all believe we are seeing.”

Tim began gathering the names of all of Paris’ students. While hacking into poorly secured school databases he began brainstorming the best ways to work through all of the identities to match to a face he had seen for at most 20 seconds.

He knew that he was looking for a girl, or a young woman… he wasn’t sure where the cut-off of girl to woman was, and he wasn’t sure which he would label the new Ladybug as. But, he figured if he was in the school systems, might as well gather all the student data for other breaks.

Tim shook his head, clearing thoughts of where the threshold of womanhood would be, and restarted a priority list, filter out male students, mark files of the remaining students that could fit the apparent cultural background. The new Ladybug had only spoken Mandarin, so Asian students would be filtered to the top to review first. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to keep searching after filtering, but to confirm they’d need to re-access student files to see whose absences would match up with the akuma appearances. Frowning, Tim wondered if noting akuma absences would actually help narrow down identities or not, it seemed only the higher end schools remained in session during akuma battles. Most schools seemed to think it would be safer to send students home, or let them roam Paris as they wished.

At first it had appalled him and his family, but after seeing how variable each akuma could be, the lack of safety protocols made sense. They still believed the schools should control their student’s safety more tightly, but the Wayne’s did have some control problems, and were used to a bit more dangerous of an environment.

His computer dinged at completely downloading the current school’s student records, and he moved onto the next.

~~~ ツ ~~~

Jason was the family expert on bad-guys. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he wasn’t one himself.

So, it made sense when they moved together for the Paris job, he’d be assigned to understanding the enemy. Instead of staying in the boujee hotel his family had all settled in, he had only stayed one night before walking around the city, looking for a grimier place. The closer you were to earth, the more grounded you were; and the more used to being with the dirt.

He had ended up in a motel, with a room that had a few suspicious stains that he avoided inspecting too closely. When he had checked in he had splurged a bit in order to rent one of the top-level rooms. It was still a few floors below any good views, but gave him an easy way to his building’s roof, and onto those nearby.

Jason ended up spending a few of the akuma attacks observing out his window, or clambering onto the roof, and letting cigarette smoke curl around him watching the battle in the distance. It didn’t take many akuma for him to realize that this ‘Hawkmoth’ guy really liked butterflies. Or maybe they were moths? The little fluttery guys the Ladybug yo-yo caught and coughed up again looked like butterflies, but then why was the guy’s name hawk-moth. Whichever.

After only those few attacks Jason had figured out he wouldn’t figure much about the bad-guy from the battles. The Akuma were mostly focused on their own issues. It was clear Hawkie wanted the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous, probably what made them into the “Ladybug” and the “Kitty.”

So Jason focused on the little winged bugs.

He couldn’t find any weirdos buying mass-amounts of any bugs, so the guy must be self-raising them, or they were super-magic and conjured just out of thin air. Jason was banking on them not being magiced just to evil-ize some kid who wanted a lollipop.

And so his search history was filled with butterfly-care that led to him discovering anyone would be able to keep butterflies.

He needed a break.

Which is exactly how he got his break.

Jason was leaping across the Paris rooftops, not even blinking at the much shorter drops, when he tripped. Cursing and twisting to catch himself he pulled his body onto the roofs peak, and caught sight of a roof. In the distance was a butterfly-shaped window.

This bad-guy couldn’t be _that_ obvious, right?

Turned out he really was that obvious. The guy who owned the butterfly-window building also ran a fashion company, and his logo was the butterfly symbol the same one that Hawkmoth had whenever he did show up.

He also had all the red flags of classic villainy, missing partner, less than connected to society.

The only thing was it seemed he had been on a long-term business trip with his son, who had kept up posting to social media.

Jason would need to bring it up to the family, see if Tim could work some tech-nerd magic to see if there was anything funny happening around this Gabriel Agreste guy.

~~~ ツ ~~~

Adrien stood in his Father’s office in shock. He could feel his jaw hanging, and that he was repeatedly blinking.

Directly in front of him was a miraculous.

He wasn’t Cat Noir anymore. But he had been. He had been half of Paris’ original duo, Adrien could tell that his mother’s old brooch had some kwami power in it.

“Adrien, close your mouth, it’s improper.”

Adrien’s consciousness slammed back into his body, and with it his back straightened and mouth finally closed, “of course, Father. I apologize.”

His father nodded acceptance at his apology. Adrien had gotten better at faking them.

“So you agree to these terms?”

Adrien was trying not to explode in excitement of what his Father was proposing, “of course, a great plan as always, Father.”

Gabriel Agreste nodded along to his son’s statement, before dismissing Adrien from the room, “be ready tomorrow, early. Natalie will be by to give you the details.”

Adrien nodded in acknowledge before scurrying out before his Father could change his mind. Once out of earshot, he sprinted to his room. Excited energy flooded his body.

He’d be staying in Paris!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, sorry for the wait; and no promises that the next will be out any sooner!
> 
> I post them as soon as I hit my chapter word-goal. Sometimes I wait a night to spell-check, but I just get excite and want to share them; sadly this means there can be a window between them-but know that it means there is no backlog, you are seeing everything that has been written!  
> That being explained, I do have a general outline for what I want to happen in the next chapter this time! Sadly, last time I tried that it no longer fit once it was all put together.
> 
> Anywhomst, let me know your thoughts! And your comments!

**Author's Note:**

> BAM. Hahaha


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